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It’s clear that the main characters ofMagic: The Gathering’s western-themed set, Outlaws of Thunder Junction, are the outlaws. But like shadow can only exist with light, outlaws can only exist with laws. That’s where Yuma, Proud Protector comes in. As one of only two Rangers in all of Thunder Junction, he’s got a tough mission: to defend the land and the people that live on it. Specifically, the Plant people.
Yuma is the box commander for the Desert Bloom preconstructed deck, which has a dual focus on Deserts and Plants. Drawing on established landfall and land recursion mechanics, this deck rewards you for discarding and sacrificing cards, and lets you bring them back almost immediately, making for a novel playstyle.
Angel of the Ruins
Descend upon the Sinful
Escape to the Wilds
Wreck and Rebuild
Return of the Wildspeaker
Desert of the Fervent
Desert of the Indomitable
Desert of the True
Dunes of the Dead
Terramorphic Expanse
Desert Bloom Commander Deck Themes
Most preconstructed commander decks feature two themes, but Desert Bloom takes a little different route, leaning into a primary theme and supplementing it with a complementary sub-theme.
Deserts matter in Desert Bloom. All lands do, but deserts in particular trigger a lot of effects in the deck. It’s easy to treat this deck as a landfall deck with a land type focus, which might make you wonder why it’s missing land ramp staples like Cultivate and Three Visits.
Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to draw and play lands, and enough lands packed into the deck already that you aren’t likely to miss a land drop, even if you get to play two or three per turn.
The sub-theme that synergizes with the landfall theme istoken generation theme. This isn’t really a separate theme, because all of the token generation effects require either putting lands into play or throwing them into your graveyard. These tokens cover a range of creature types, including Plant, Elemental, and Insect.
The deck comes with two potential commanders, butYuma, Proud Protector is generally a better choice than Kirri, Talented Sprout. There are several self-mill effects and a lot of Deserts in the deck to empower Yuma, making him easy to work with and around. Bring him out early and start moving Deserts into your graveyard to grow an army of Plant Warriors.
Kirri, Talented Sprout is the other out-of-the-box commander option. It gives all other Plants and Treefolk you control a +2/+0 buff, and moves Plants, Treefolk, or lands from your graveyard to your hand on your second main phase.
While this works well within the themes of the deck, there are only a few Plant creatures, no Treefolk, and lots of ways to play lands from your graveyard without returning them to your hand.Kirri, Talented Sprout works well to buff your Plant tokens, but not to lead the army.
Hazezon, Shaper of Sand is an unexpected but welcome reprint in this deck, and can serve as your commander if you don’t want to show Yuma right off the bat.Hazezon allows you to play desserts from your graveyard, and generates 1/1 Sand Warrior creature tokenswhenever a Desert enters the battlefield under your control.
This fits both themes of the deck and gives you easy access to one of the ways to keep retrieving Deserts from your graveyard, but the tokens it creates won’t benefit from Kirri’s buff.
Desert Bloom Commander Deck Analysis
Rather than splitting between two themes with little overlap,Desert Bloom brings both themes together. The landfall and graveyard effects are functional, but don’t do much to end the game until combined with the token creation mechanics. This makes for a fun, yet straightforward playstyle that can get the job done but doesn’t feel particularly powerful, whether you’re playing the deck or playing against it.
The deck is well-designed, with only a few cards that stand out as being in need of replacement. You may find this to be a difficult task, however, as there are many more cards that feel like upgrades than cards that you’ll actually want to replace, forcing you to choose which ones you want to make room for.
Generally, you’ll want toreplace one-time effects with multiple-use effects, and a couple of “goodstuff” cards with cards that will synergize better with the rest of the deck.
Unholy Heat
Heaven // Earth
Marshal’s Anthemprovides a minor buff to all of your creatures, and allows you to reanimate some if you have enough mana to multi-kick it. You won’t want a graveyard full of creatures, though, and there are better buffs available.
Impulse draw, like that provided byEscape to the Wilds, is always risky. You’ll exile five cards, but only have a limited time to play them and still have to pay their costs. Something that’s a less risky draw and the ability to put land cards into your graveyard, likeShamanic Revelations, is a good replacement.
Perpetual Timepiece,Heaven // Earth, andUnholy Heatfeel distinctly out of place in this deck, and can be replaced by practically anything on the budget upgrades list without losing anything that you want the deck to do. Similarly, you won’t missGenesis Hydra, which can be replaced by a big land recursion spell such asSplendid Reclamationfor a much larger effect for often a much lower mana cost.
Eccentric Farmer,Springbloom Druid, andSkullwinderare all single-time effects when they enter the battlefield, and Skullwinder even gives your opponent the option to return something from their graveyard to their hand. All three can be safely cut for something that provides more recurring value, likeConduit of Worlds.
Finally,Crawling SensationandScaretillerare both good fits for the deck, but will not perform up to snuff. Crawling Sensation creates Insect tokens when lands go into your graveyard, but only once per turn. If you’re going to overwhelm your opponents with tokens, you’ll need more than that.
Scaretiller similarly can bring lands into play from your hand or graveyard when it becomes tapped, but the deck doesn’t include any reliable ways to tap it aside from attacking, and no good ways to punish your opponent for blocking or combat tricks to keep it alive.Scaretiller would work great in a green/blue landfall deck, but not so well here.
Desert Bloom Commander Deck Budget Upgrades
Rather than narrowing the focus of the deck,try to reinforce what it already doesby adding redundancy or capitalizing on effects already in place. There are a few direct upgrades available on a budget, but a handful of broadening effects that can make your deck more robust.
Reason
Azusa, Lost but Seeking
You want a lot of lands to come into play each turn, and there are several ways to play lands from your graveyard.Adding Azusa, Lost but Seeking will allow you to move more landsback and forth between the battlefield and the graveyard each turn.
Lotus Cobra
A lot of the lands included in this deck come into play tapped, slowing down your game.Lotus Cobra gives you one mana of any color every time a land comes into play under your control, easily getting around that drawback. With instant land search like Evolving Wilds this can turn into a resource your opponents will overlook until it’s too late.
Impact Tremors
When the deck is running smoothly, you’ll be creating a lot of creature tokens. The goal is to eliminate your opponents through token army attacks, butImpact Tremors will make that a little easier by dealing one damage to each opponent for each creature you put into play.
Sprouting Goblin
Sprouting Goblin does a lot for this deck.This jolly fellow will find you a Forest, Mountain, or Plains and put it into your hand, and then give you the ability to sacrifice lands to draw cards on later turns. Note that he looks for a basic land type, not a basic land, so you can search for dual-type lands, such as Sheltered Thicket.
Phylath, World Sculptor
This deck contains pitifully few Plants for what it wants to do, butPhylath, World Sculptor will give you Plant tokens just for controlling basic lands. Then it’ll put +1/+1 counters onto your plants as you put more lands into play, ensuring that they grow into mighty oaks.
Escape Tunnel
Terramorphic Expanse can trigger Landfall abilities twice: Once when it comes into play, and again when you sacrifice it to search for a basic land to put into play.Escape Tunnel does the exact same thing, but has a second abilitythat allows you to make a creature with power of two or less unblockable.This is a direct upgrade that should replace Terramorphic Expanse in every deck you build.
Crop Rotation
Crop Rotation can be used to trade any land you have in play for any other land in your deck. Better yet, you may sacrifice a tapped land and put the new land into play untapped (if it doesn’t come into play tapped as a card effect).This can trigger both graveyard and battlefield effects at instant speed, and since there are several ways to put lands into play from your graveyard you really don’t lose anything.
Nahiri’s Lithoforming
If one of your cards that allows you to play lands from your graveyard is in play,Nahiri’s Lithoforming allows you to sacrifice a ton of lands to draw a ton of cards, getting the graveyard and battlefield effects from both at the same time.
Conduit of Worlds
Conduit of Worldsis a poor man’sCrucible of Worlds, but it has the bonus effect of allowing you to play one spell on your turn from your graveyard. And unlike Flashback, this effect doesn’t exile the spell, so you can keep reusing it.
Krosan Restorer
With the number of cards going into your graveyard in this deck, you’ll hit Threshold early and be able to untap three lands all the time. This is a big early mana boost, and an easy addition. Especially since you can untap the lands that came into play tapped.
Spelunking
A full quarter of your lands will enter play tapped, and since you’ll be sacrificing and replaying them you’ll start to feel that drag. Spelunking not only gets you an extra land when it comes into play, it alsoguarantees that your lands are available to use immediately.
Shamanic Revelation
Shamanic Revelation is likely todraw you a lot of cards, but since so many of your creatures and tokens will have power above four you’ll also get togain a bunch of life.
Splendid Reclamation
After yousacrifice all of your lands(or your opponent blows them up to slow you down), turn around and use Splendid Reclamation tobring them all back into play at once. Just like Nahiri’s Lithoforming, this can be a big enough play to potentially win you games by itself.
Wayward Swordtooth
Wayward Swordtooth is a good replacement for Scaretiller, sinceboth will functionally net you one extra land per turn. Swordtooth, however, is also a 5/5 beater to swing at your opponents with.
